“It was the right thing to do.” That’s Ahab Alhindi, owner of the Madayne restaurants and cafes on Hilltop Drive and Eureka Way, explaining that the west Redding location “gave away $5,000 in product last month” in the wake of the Carr Fire.

The Eureka Way restaurant, opened in September 2016, features burgers, barbecued meats, draft beer and other menu items that the original Madayne, opened in 2013 in the Hilltop Landing shopping center, doesn’t offer because of its smaller size.

“It’s massive,” Alhindi says of the Eureka Way restaurant. “Our prep area is as big as our kitchen (at the Hilltop location).

“Ma-da-yne,” Alhindi explained, means “traveler” in Arabic and describes the journey his family took centuries ago migrating from Oman to present-day Jordan.

Alhindi worked at restaurants in high school and college. After arriving in Redding about a decade ago, he became a regular at the YAKS cafe in the Hilltop Landing shopping center. When the owners decided to sell, he stepped up, spying opportunity.

“We took the MSG and high-fructose corn syrup out of the menu and added real olive oil,” made other changes and rechristened the place Madayne.

His favorite items include the Southern breakfast burrito, the teriyaki bowl and the trinami sandwich, the latter two items at the Eureka Way location.

The Eureka Way restaurant is “now profitable,” he told me and he’s aiming to make it even “faster and more efficient.” He put Preston Coy, his trusted first employee, in charge as manager.

Alhindi says the Hilltop restaurant has a “youthful, college vibe — a classic cafe with high-quality ingredients” while the Eureka Way eatery — popular with “doctors, nurses, construction workers, high school students and their parents” — is “more like a high-quality grill you can take your wife to.”

Later this year he plans to redesign part of the kitchen to further speed up orders. His aim: “Get food to the table in 15 minutes even if we’re slammed.” To that end he eliminated several items from the menu — like the pulled pork and pastrami — that weren’t selling enough to justify the time they took to prepare.